


Pixelated Reality

by xyrilyn



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alchemist!Seung-Gil, Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Video Game World, ArchMage!Yuuri, Assassin!Otabek, Bard!Chris, Beastmaster!Phichit, Berserker!Minami, Blacksmith!Takeshi, Cleric!Guang-Hong, Crossbowman!JJ, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fantasy, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gaming, Guildmaster!Victor, Gunslinger!Yuri, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Norse Mythology, Light Angst, M/M, MMORPGs, MasterSwordsman!Victor, Merchant!Yuuko, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Paladin!Leo, Ranger!Emil, Rogue!Georgi, VRMMORPGs, Virtual Reality, more tags to be added later on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-09-12 00:37:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9048337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xyrilyn/pseuds/xyrilyn
Summary: Yuuri Katsuki is a Level 230 Arch Mage - the top ranking Arch Mage in Code Regius Online (CRO) - the world's #1 Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game.Victor Nikiforov is a Level 190 Master Swordsman and Guildmaster of Fimbulwinter - a pirate/PK-killer guild.After a chance encounter in a nondescript town, Victor invites Yuuri to join Fimbulwinter and Yuuri accepts - they then embark on numerous adventures together as they search for the mythical World Tree - Yggdrasil - while completing quests, killing player-killers and searching for treasure along the way.Strip away their online personas, however, Yuuri and Victor are but just two people trying to find their own place in the world.(in other words: the VRMMORPG AU that no one asked for)





	1. Chance Encounter

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday Victor! <3 and Merry Christmas!
> 
> I don't know where I am going with this story. Let's find out, shall we?

"Sorry kid. I already have an apprentice."

Yuuri nodded and thanked the old man for his time. Adjusting the strap of his bag on his shoulder, Yuuri turned to leave the hovel.

This particular coastal town didn't have much - a bar or two, an inn, a general store... - so Yuuri hadn't really been expecting to land an apprenticeship here, but still... it had been worth a shot. Reaching into his knapsack, he pulled out a worn map.

He had already visited the towns that were accessible on foot. The rest were simply too far away to reach on foot. Sighing, he folded the map and pocketed it.

Simply put, Yuuri was in deep shit. And to top it off, it was a hole he had willingly dug himself into many, many months ago.

The only way his situation could turn around was if some form of miracle were to happen upon him-

"This place looks like a dump - why did we even bother stopping here for?"

"Ah, Yuri. You still have much to learn. You never know if a town has treasure lying in wait - and that is why we're stopping here." For a brief moment, Yuuri thought the voice had been referring to him. Then, the voice from before answered back.

"You're just stopping here because of your goddamned gut feeling, Victor."

"You must learn to trust your instincts, Yuri!~"

Yuuri was currently sitting on the ground - in the shade of a lone tree in the middle of the dusty street - watching as the boisterous newcomers - and their gang of merry men and women - ambled into the main street from the docks. They must be pirates or dungeon raiders or something...

He openly stared at the group until one of them noticed him staring.

"Hey, you."

A blond gunslinger walked up to him. His fringe blocked one eye from view as he leaned down slightly to loom over Yuuri. Yuuri found himself absolutely not giving a shit.

"What's good in this town?"

"Nothing," Yuuri said, shrugging. It was the truth. This place was a dead town.

The blond turned around and shouted back at his guild leader. "You heard that Victor? There's nothing here. We might as well pack up and set sail as soon as we can."

"Now, now Yuri. What did I say about hidden treasures?" came the condescending remark.

"Goddamnit, Victor!"

"Oh for god's sake, calm the hell down Yuri," a dark-haired male spoke up from a distance away.

"Shut the hell up, JJ. I'm sick of wasting time exploring towns with nothing good to loot."

The crossbowman named JJ merely rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"What are you, anyway?"

Yuuri hadn't been listening actually. He only realised he was being spoken to when the irritable blond slammed a foot against the tree Yuuri had been happily leaning against.

"Hey, I'm talking to you dimwit!"

Yuuri shrugged nonchalantly. "Nothing."

"Well, it sure looks like it," he growled before leaving. "Filthy casual..." Yuuri heard him say.

The group continued down the street, leaving Yuuri alone with his thoughts.

Sweet, sweet silence... Maybe Yuuri could finally nap for a while...

However, when screams began erupting out of nowhere, Yuuri knew his afternoon nap had been compromised.

Yuuri stubbornly kept his eyes closed though. He wanted nothing to do with this, he wanted nothing to do with-

Something large whizzed just past his face and crashed somewhere to his right. He opened his eyes and glanced to the side - oh, it was a horse carriage. Yuuri took that as his cue to get up.

A herd of wild centaurs had appeared from the forest nearby. The rude gunslinger and his guild members were currently fighting them off.

"Why are we even bothering with clearing this mob out? I'm just wasting ammo here!" Yuri said as Victor slashed a centaur down with his sword.

"We can't just leave them to terrorise anyone who happens to come along later, Yuri," Victor said in a chastising manner. That only seemed to aggravate the blond gunslinger even more and in his fury, he unleashed a storm of bullets at the herd, killing off several of them effortlessly.

Their numbers were hardly affected though. There were at least several dozen left.

"How did they ended up coming here anyway?" another dark-haired male said as he ducked to dodge the things the centaurs were throwing at them. "These things are way too high level for some of us!"

"Gil, move back, I'll handle them," Yuri said as he covered his flank, raining bullets on the monsters as the alchemist Gil retreated.

In the midst of the chaos of it all, Yuuri stood up and dusted himself off before approaching the battlefield.

Raising his hands, he began chanting. Energy began gathering in the air, supercharging it. With a single fluid motion, Yuuri slammed his hand on the ground, summoning lightning straight down from the heavens themselves, striking every single centaur within a one hundred metre radius. Every single one collapsed to the ground a few moments later.

The battle concluded just like that. The battle summary window that appeared in front of him after that made Yuuri frown.

"I didn't even get any experience points for that, jeez," he muttered under his breath as he scrolled through the list of loot he got from that 'battle'.

Closing the window, he turned to look around at the aftermath of his magic.

The centaur corpses had already disappeared, leaving behind only a group of bewildered players. They were all staring at him, flabbergasted.

Yuuri rolled his eyes as he brought up the main menu. His hand hovered over the 'log out' button.

"Who's the filthy casual now?" he said with a half-smirk as he logged out.

.  
.  
.

Pulling the machine off of his head, Yuuri breathed a sigh of relief.

After putting the headgear below his bed, Yuuri rolled over and took a nap for real this time.

There wouldn't be any more sudden monster spawns or player parties disturbing his sleep this time.

.  
.  
.

The next time he logged in, he was alone. The town was completely deserted - as it should be.

"Hey."

An airy voice floated over to him. Yuuri turned around.

A silver-haired swordsman stood beneath the tree that Yuuri had been sitting under the other time. Yuuri recognised him from the group the other day.

"Wanna join my guild? We could use a pro like you."

Yuuri raised an eyebrow at this. Really? Was he really so bold to even suggest that? "What's in it for me? I can handle myself perfectly fine."

"We mostly play this game for fun - we take on the dangerous quests that no one in their right mind would do because the rewards are simply not worth it and we also go around killing player-killers."

"Well, so what? I can do all of those on my own, too."

He smiled. "We're also looking for the World Tree - Yggdrasil."

That captured Yuuri's interest instantly. He looked at the silver-haired male in new light. What was the swordsman's name again? Victor, was it?

"You guys are seriously looking for it?"

"We are. I'm hoping you will reconsider," Victor smiled, eyes bright.

Yuuri didn't even have to give it a second thought - he was in.

"Okay. I won't do things I don't like though. You guys are on your own when that happens."

The other male merely smiled a heart-shaped smile and nodded. "Okay!~ I'll send you the invite now..."

"We aren't doing introductions first?" Yuuri casually said, accepting the invite anyway when it appeared.

"Well, if you insist..." the taller male shrugged. "My name's Victor. Level 190 Master Swordsman."

Yuuri raised an eyebrow at that. "You didn't seem like a level 190 the other time."

"Back then, you didn't seem like one of the game's top players either."

"Touche." Yuuri smiled a little at that response. He held out a hand to shake. "Yuuri. Level 230 Post-Rebirth Arch Mage."

Victor returned the handshake with a wide smile.

"I can tell this is going to be the start of a beautiful friendship~" Victor dramatically announced with that cute heart-shaped smile of his again. Yuuri rolled his eyes at Victor's antics, but he found himself smiling anyway.

For the first time in a long time, Yuuri didn't think he was going to be bored playing this game.


	2. Press Any Button To Begin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuri meets the rest of the guild.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> World-building is hard. That is all I have to say. In case anyone's interested, the end notes has my notes (ramblings / half-rant) on how I think the player user interface should work in VRMMORPGs (technological capabilities and feasibility aside).
> 
> Happy reading!

Lying down on his bed, Yuuri reached out blindly beneath his bed for his headgear and plugged it in before putting it on.

As the mental link was being established, Yuuri slowly felt the sensation of his bed beneath him disappear. The headgear worked by directly intercepting nerve impulses for every sense of the human body. This transition was the most disorienting part of full-state virtual reality, but it lasted for only a very brief moment, so most get used to it soon enough.

The scenery around him changed into a never-ending landscape of pure white, filled only with shelves of what appeared to be books.

In this space, you could either walk around to visually browse the games you wanted to play, or you could say aloud the name of the game you wanted to select. Every player had different preferences when it came to the visual representation of the games they owned. Some preferred floating bubbles of in-game scenes while others wanted their games to appear in a simple, scrollable list. Yuuri opted for having them arranged like books in a library. He owned far too many games for his own good - his 'game library' was an actual library at this point.

"Code Regius Online," Yuuri said and slowly, the world faded into a dark grey.

Entering any virtual world these days was like waking up from a very deep slumber where you hadn't even known you had fallen asleep. It has since been aptly named, 'awakening'.

Yuuri heard the faint tinkling of a bell - that was his cue to open his eyes.

He awoke to the sight of his forest cabin in Lavender Forest. He turned his head to the side where light was pouring in through the window. It was still bright outside - but Lavender Forest had longer daylight hours than other regions, so he couldn't be exactly sure what time it was in CRO.

Sitting up, he moved his index finger in a small circular motion before swiping downwards as if he were pulling down an invisible menu.

Bright, cyan words floated in mid-air, silently mocking him.

_'You have 20 new private messages, 5 new private audio messages and 53 unread guild messages.'_

He had just logged off for two hours for lunch for God's sake-

> From: Victor [Guildmaster of Fimbulwinter]  
>  Yuuuuuuri! When are you logging on? I'm waiting for you at Crespria's central marketplace!  
>  Timestamp: December 18th 2088 2:15PM
> 
> From: Victor [Guildmaster of Fimbulwinter]  
>  Yuuuuuuuuuuuri! C'mon, wake up already!  
>  Timestamp: December 18th 2088 2:18PM
> 
> From: Victor [Guildmaster of Fimbulwinter]  
>  Yuuuuri...  
>  Timestamp: December 18th 2088 2:30PM

Before Yuuri could even listen to the rest of the audio messages, a ping sounded, indicating the arrival of yet another message:

> From: SERVER [Automated Notification Service]  
>  Victor [Lv 190 Master Swordsman] has sent you a holo-orb. You have unlimited courier uses left. Your Premium Courier Pass expires on December 31st 2088. Do you wish to have it couriered? ETA: 3 seconds.

Yuuri closed the notification and thought about how he wanted to craft a new message instead - a window popped up instantly with a flashing red indicator. He spoke in a completely monotonous voice:

"Stop spamming my inbox. I will mute you.  
Clog up my notifications by sending me stuff and I will blacklist you."

_'Recipient?'_

Yuuri said Victor's name and off the message went.

Yuuri mentally 'grabbed' the remaining audio messages and threw them out of his sight. After that, he disabled all clan notifications in the settings before heaving a long sigh.

He got up from bed with the intention to grab something to eat from the kitchen when another ping grabbed his attention.

> From: Victor [Guildmaster of Fimbulwinter]  
>  TT_TT I'm sorry. Will you forgive me?  
>  Timestamp: December 18th 2088 2:52PM

Pulling out a turkey sandwich he had magically frozen the other day, Yuuri absentmindedly thawed it as he wrote another message.

> To: Victor [Guildmaster of Fimbulwinter]  
>  So, why did you ask me to meet you at Crespria anyway? Any leads on Yggdrasil?  
>  Timestamp: December 18th 2088 3:05PM

He was half way through the sandwich when Victor replied. His excited voice filled the room:

"There's a new, limited time only, dungeon raid here! I thought this would be a good way for you to meet the others? Some of them have been dying to meet you! No leads on Yggdrasil yet, though."

Ah, raids. He hadn't been on one for a very long time. The minimum party size requirement was a big deterrent. He had as many good memories of raids as he had bad ones. The raids in CRO were notoriously difficult - something Yuuri appreciated.

Well, he did agree to join Fimbulwinter. Yuuri supposed he should at least meet the others.

> To: Victor [Guildmaster of Fimbulwinter]  
>  Alright. I'll be there as soon as I can.  
>  Timestamp: December 18th 2088 3:08PM

Finishing up his sandwich, he dusted his hands of any crumbs before making to leave the house.

Yuuri made sure he was standing in the right stance before reciting the teleportation spell.

The tricky part about being a mage was the spell activation sequences. There were no buttons to mash, no hotkeys to use - all he had at his disposal were his words and his body - stance, hand gestures and occasionally feet movement. Mages are inherently very powerful as a solo class, but not many players in CRO wanted to fully take on the challenge of only having spells in their arsenal - especially when there were these things called 'combination attacks', or combos, for short, that easily and more reliably increased their ability, combat power and/or damage output. Mages had the highest chance of skill failure due to the complexity of the spell activation sequences. To make matters worse, there was the failed spell penalty. Botching up a spell also often caused far too many problems than most people were willing to handle. For most classes, messing up a skill would just mean that the skill won't be activated - but for mages, messing up a spell could mean self-inflicted damage, paralysis, stun, poison, blindness...

This is why most played hybrid mage classes instead of a pure mage - so that they had other skills to immediately fall back on when they badly fail a spell. The only ones who played pure mage were the hardcore players in CRO - the elite players who nail every spell sequence without fail, usually after weeks upon weeks (months?) of training and grinding to memorise all the spell sequences and practise them to perfection.

Yuuri was one of them.

Feeling the familiar thrum of energy in the air, Yuuri called out his destination, loud and clear, "Crespria."

The energy that had been gathering suddenly flared out from his palm to surround him. The world disappeared in a swirl of colours and sounds as the magic did its work. For a very brief moment, Yuuri felt like he was floating in space before the world came into focus and gravity took hold of him again. His feet came into contact with the ground suddenly. He was now at Crespria's central gate - the default location for all incoming teleports.

The central marketplace was buzzing with activity - AIs and players alike were promoting their wares and goods. The sparkling, neon banners and animated screens lit up the entire place. The entire place was a cacophony of sounds from all the talking - mostly shouting - that was going on.

Yuuri wordlessly cast a locator spell to find Victor. It took Yuuri only a few minutes to find him. Victor saw him approaching and immediately waved him over.

"Yuuuuuri, over here!"

Victor was smiling that ridiculous heart-shaped smile of his again and waving his arms high up in the air. From the looks of it, he was already prepped and ready to go. His gold-trimmed armour shone brilliantly in the sunlight. It was form-hugging in all the right places and not excessively bulky like most warrior armour - it was eye-catching, that's for sure. Yuuri wasn't sure what material it was made of for it to shine so resplendently like that. As Yuuri approached, he scanned the runic markings elegantly etched onto the plates. He immediately recognised the rune of protection - for defence - and the rune of purity - for repelling curses. Whoever who carved the runes for this set of armour knew what they were doing.

Yuuri couldn't say the same for the colour scheme though. It was far too _pretty_ for combat.

"Oh, you're dressed in a robe this time?" Victor casually said, looking at him from head to toe.

Yuuri looked back down at what he was wearing. He hadn't been paying attention actually. Equipment-wise, he only had his shadow spider-silk robes on - he had gotten it as an uncommon drop from shadow spiders in the deep cave systems of Nircadia. The robe was nothing special - it offered only basic elemental protection. Beneath that was just a cream turtleneck sweater and a pair of pants.

The shadow spider-silk seemed to absorb all light. From afar, the cloth seemed just like any other black-dyed robe. Compared to Victor, Yuuri seemed almost underdressed. Yuuri found the glaring contrast between their appearances strangely amusing for some reason.

"Well, I _am_ a mage," Yuuri said, rolling his eyes.

"Well, I think they suit you very well," Victor said suddenly. Against his own will, Yuuri blushed slightly. He didn't say anything in response to that.

"Anyway, let's go, the rest are waiting for us at the eastern entrance," Victor led the way and Yuuri followed. Navigating the streets became easier the further away they got from the marketplace as the crowd thinned.

"What sort of raid is it?" Yuuri asked. He hadn't looked up any information on the raid. If Victor was anything close to a capable guildmaster and party leader, he would have done the prepwork already.

"I asked some of the groups who went in earlier. The raid is your typical mob rush with two mini bosses and a final boss. The stages are level-adaptive, so at least it won't be _too_ easy for you," Victor explained.

"Are we aiming for placement?"

"We could, I suppose. The fixed rewards are so-so, but the challenge rewards and chance rewards are much better. With our raid size, we'd qualify for the medium tier rankings."

"What sort of classes do you have in your guild?"

"We have lots of different classes really. We have a beastmaster, a crossbowman, a ranger, an assassin, a gunslinger, a cleric, a paladin..." Victor began listing them.

"We didn't have a pure mage with us until you came along though."

"Well... pure mages are quite rare in CRO..."

"For good reason, too. I tried my hand at spells when I first started in CRO," Victor admitted, slightly sheepish. "It was tough. Given enough practice, I might have been okay at it - like how most mages and spell-casters dealt with the spell sequences - but I didn't like the solitary play style that mages favoured. I preferred those awesome, cross-class combos, ya know?"

Ah, yes - combination attacks. Timing spell sequences was already a pain - trying to pair up with others to perform combos on the fly is insanely difficult during actual combat situations.

"If you liked combination attacks so much, why not a rogue or an assassin?" The thief-type class had the largest variety of combination attacks.

"I like the idea of wielding a sword," Victor said, shrugging.

"Well, that's fair enough," Yuuri nodded.

"What made you choose your class?"

"Oh, I just thought the spells looked cool. It was a nice change-"

"Oh my god. It's him! It's _him_!" an excited voice rang. That was all the warning Yuuri got before a small body tumbled into him, knocking him off his feet, sending the both of them sprawling across the ground.

"Minami!"

"I-I'm your biggest fan!" the small dwarf exclaimed as he got up. "Minami the Berserker, at your service!" Minami readjusted the skull headdress on his head as he stood up. He offered a hand to help Yuuri up and Yuuri took it, muttering his thanks. Minami's grip was surprisingly strong given his small stature - he easily pulled Yuuri up to his feet - Yuuri barely had to do anything at all.

"Shit, sorry about that. Minami was just so excited to meet you!"

Yuuri turned to the other player who had tried to stop the dwarf from barrel-rolling into him.

"Hi, my name's Phichit. Nice to meet you! I'm Fimbulwinter's one and only Beastmaster!" he introduced himself. On his head and shoulders, three small hamsters squeaked, as if in greeting. Each of the hamsters were dressed in their own bright costumes. Those hamsters were probably the shrunken forms of his animal familiars. Well. They _looked_ like hamsters, but they were probably of the bear class - fury-bears maybe?

Yuuri could have guessed Phichit's class just from his clothes alone - he was barefooted, clad in what appeared to be bear furs all around and had a bear's head for a hat. The absence of any weapon on him was also very telling - beastmasters can't use weapons. The hat was probably just fashioned to look like a bear's head, but it looked real enough to Yuuri.

"I-I'm Yuuri. Well, you already know what I am so..."

"Let's go meet the others!"

Yuuri was then introduced to a lot of people.

JJ - Yuuri remembered him from their previous encounter - was the guild's only crossbowman. JJ didn't seem very keen on meeting him - he stayed mostly away from the rest of the group and hadn't even introduced himself to Yuuri - Phichit had to do it for him. Yuuri had seen him fighting alongside the others the other day so maybe he just didn't like socialising? Or maybe he had a thing against mages - who could tell? JJ was the second highest level player - third, if you included Yuuri - in the guild, at Level 182.

The guild's alchemist was Seung Gil. He was very formal with his introductions and retreated to the back of the group after he was done. Yuuri hadn't managed to learn much from him. So... another one who didn't like socialising? Well, Yuuri wasn't in any position to judge - since he disliked socialising in large crowds, himself.

Leo was a Paladin and his best friend Guang-Hong was a Cleric. They made quite the pair with their defensive and healing abilities. Yuuri thought they looked adorable with their matching cloaks. There weren't very high level - Leo was Level 91 while Guang-Hong was at Level 93 - so Yuuri was slightly concerned about the level gap between them and some of the others. They seemed to be coping fine, so maybe they had a system of roles going that Yuuri wasn't aware about.

Chris - who had serenaded Yuuri when he arrived - was a Bard. What concerned Yuuri more was Chris' outlandish outfit - it was this horrible shade of neon purple decorated with glitter. Yuuri thought the outfit would have looked better with a darker shade of purple, maybe, or anything less... glaring. That aside, Chris was actually a pretty darn good support with his buffs and debuffs. At Level 169, his songs and dances easily doubled the fighting capability of his guildmates.

Yuri, the rude blonde kid - the same one who had called him a filthy casual - was a Level 128 gunslinger. Yuri hadn't offered much helpful information, but from his health points (HP) alone, Yuuri could tell he was running a pure dexterity build and as a result was probably as fragile as the cleric in the guild. His damage per second (DPS) however... could probably match even Victor's if the circumstances were right and if Yuri used his area-of-effect (AOE) skills properly. Yuuri mentally catalogued this information for future use.

Living up to the reputation of assassins, Yuuri barely even noticed Otabek approach him. At Level 175, he was the third highest level player before Yuuri came along. A man of few words, he said relatively little before returning to the sidelines, immediately joined by Yuri. It seemed Otabek and Yuri were friends? Yuuri could already picture the combos an assassin/gunslinger pair could pull off and the carnage they would leave behind. If only Yuri was at a higher level... Yuuri shuddered.

Emil was the guild's ranger. His actual class is a archer/tracker hybrid. At times he played archer, other times he played tracker. He was the closest thing the guild had to a scout. Emil seemed to be quite a chill guy.

His head was swimming with names by the end of it all.

Yuuri came up with a mental image of what the party would look like and he cringed visibly.

"...You guys are quite the glass cannon guild, huh?" Yuuri commented.

The ratio of damage dealers compared to supports... was concerning. Hell, most of the support classes were at a much, much lower level compared to the rest! Their cleric was only at Level 93, for god's sake! And they did raids meant for players in the level range of hundreds?! A hundred different things could go wrong!

"Yeeeaaaah..." Victor trailed off. "We didn't even have a healer at first. That's partially the reason why we took in Leo and Guang-Hong - we're trying to get them exp as fast as possible so that the level gap isn't too big,"

"By rushing mobs, dungeons and raids tens of levels ahead of theirs?"

"Yep."

Yuuri facepalmed.

"We haven't faced any substantial losses before, so it works out, I guess?" Victor said too cheerfully for Yuuri to be okay with it. Yuuri gave Victor a scolding look.

"...A good offence is a good defence...?" Victor tried again. Yuuri just sighed.

Well, at least now Yuuri knew what role he would be playing in this guild.

"I'm sure you'll make an awesome support!" Victor said all too cheerfully, as if somehow reading his thoughts. Yuuri rolled his eyes.

Mentally, he was recalling the sequences for all the support spells he had in his arsenal. He was more used to dealing damage, but he supposed he could play support for now. This was one of the few benefits of being a pure mage class - he had access to the largest amount of spells.

Taking another sweeping glance at the members who had gathered, he looked forward to seeing them in battle.

This was bound to be interesting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, what do you think? What sort of scenarios do you want to see them in? Any side-pairings?
> 
> I don't have any concrete plans for this story yet, so it will probably end up quite episodic (with some sort of overarching plot if you squint, that sort of thing).
> 
>  **Ramblings on Player User Interface in Virtual Reality**  
>  If there was one thing I learnt from the first few episodes of Sword Art Online, is that a single, tiny, scrollable / expandable list for inventory management is a sin when it comes to VRMMORPGs. They're impossible to access fast enough when the need arises - which is why in some MMORPGs, players can have so many windows opened on-screen at the same time - and trust me, the time will come when you need to spam potions and consumables.
> 
> In full VR, you don't have a keyboard in front of you. No hotkeys, no shortcuts - what do we do then?
> 
> Assuming technology has advanced far enough, in this story, most - if not all - of the player-side settings and menus are accessed by thought. Inventory is accessed through thought, consumables are summoned into your hand by just thinking about them, you swap out equipment sets by just thinking about them - of course, this all hinges on how well you know your inventory.
> 
> CRO has built-in player-aids for this and other functions (consumables tracker, skill / spell charge / delay timers, numerical health / mana indicators, et cetera) but they can all be turned off (in case the player thinks the visual effects are more distracting than helpful). In certain circumstances (PvP, for example), these player-aids are disabled by default.
> 
> To prevent stray thoughts from executing certain critical instructions or bringing up the wrong options / menus that the players want to access, certain functions (like general settings, player-aid settings, log out, message writing/recording, trading, gifting, blacklisting/blocking, player reporting, et cetera) are only accessible after the player does a predetermined gesture (customisable by the player) to access the main menu. Main menu has 'buttons' for all of these functions, but the player can just simply think of what they want to do as well and the game reacts accordingly.
> 
> During active combat, certain functions (e.g. equipment access) are also disabled by default.
> 
> As for health point indicators for your teammates: I don't like the idea of floating health bars that rigidly follow the head of each player - they obstruct your view and can be obstructed from view.  
> Which is why in CRO, you see health bar indicators of your teammates' HP as a small pop-up only when you are focused at them. For healers (or those who want to see their teammates' HP all the time), they can set the health bars to be visible all the time via changing the player-aid settings.
> 
> Yeah. If you're wondering about certain choices I made to write the story - here's the explanation to some of them. Sorry about this lengthy rant . ___ .


	3. Ignite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They enter the dungeon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uni got a little busy for me :X  
> With the Lunar New Year celebrations, I've managed to get some writing in so hurray for that XD

Standing outside the portal, Yuuri rummaged through his inventory, mentally cataloguing all the consumables he had. He didn't like having too many trackers hovering in the corners of his vision, so he had most of them turned off or set to focus-only. He swapped out his current gear for ones that moderately decreased his spell delays and then summoned his soul-gem staff into his hands - he was ready.

Minami was staring intensely at him for some reason. Phichit was sending nervous looks at Minami. JJ was checking his crossbow. Chris was singing a song in a language Yuuri didn't recognise. The rest were doing the same thing Yuuri had been doing moments ago.

"Okay, everyone ready?"

Victor's words were met with affirmative nods and replies all around.

Victor turned and touched the crystal sitting on the pedestal in front of the portal and-

-they were immediately teleported into the first room.

Mossy bricks. High, hanging archways. Curtains of creeping vines falling from the darkened ceiling overhead. Water trickling down and through the numerous cracks in the ancient walls. So, your typical abandoned ruins theme, but with a more purplish palette than the usual ones he'd seen - okay, sure - Yuuri was okay with that. The dungeon's layout and decor were procedurally-generated upon entry, except for special rooms like boss fights and other challenge rooms, but the types of monsters were not. He wasn't really bothered by how generic the place looked - he was more interested in the contents of the dungeon anyway.

 _'The clock is ticking,'_ he reminded himself.

With his staff, he drew a straight, vertical line in mid-air followed by a side-ways 'v' - the shape of the thurisaz (þurisaz) rune. Using the game's pseudo-latin, he recited a twelve-word sequence to cast a spell of physical protection and a high-level curse deflect on everyone in the guild. Yuuri's feet were already moving as he finished executing the first sequence. After drawing a tilted 'f' shape - ansuz - along the ground with his left foot, he slammed the base of his staff onto the ground and said - in his native tongue, Japanese:

"Reveal and illuminate."

An echo of his magic radiated outwards along the ground and walls, like the shockwave of a water droplet falling into a still body of water. Almost instantaneously, the room seemed brighter - though nothing else seemed to be different. That... was good, actually. More unforgiving dungeons would have littered the entrance room with dozens of traps for the reckless and inexperienced.

"Emil, keep an eye out for anything that shines bright red - it means they're traps. That's your cue to go disable them if you can," Yuuri told Emil and he nodded in reply.

"So cool!" came a high-pitched squeal from Minami. Yuuri rubbed the back of his neck nervously.

"The spell works at 100% detection rate within a thirty-metre radius around the caster, so... don't venture too far out," Yuuri explained.

A soft glow enveloped everyone then. Yuuri's body immediately felt lighter, more agile. Glancing around, he spotted Chris strumming a lute, singing a song in a language he did not recognise.

Everyone else began casting self-buffs as well, piling on the effects to the point where Yuuri couldn't even distinguish the individual visual effects anymore. A loud roar came from one side of the room. Yuuri naturally turned to look. It came from Phichit's familiars - Yuuri was right; they _were_ fury-bears.

He made a mental note to himself to stay as far away from the bears as physically possible.

After that was done, everyone - save for him - got into formation.

Victor, Leo, Minami and Phichit were at the front. Otabek, Yuri, JJ and Emil were right behind them. Seung-gil, Guang-Hong and Chris were at the back. Yuuri joined the back row.

He'd thought that Seung-gil would be at the front - given how his class excels at dealing damage over time (DoT), spamming debuffs and is relatively tanky compared to the rest of the vanguard - but this was an acceptable alternative, given the current level of their cleric.

With that, they ventured deeper into the dungeon. Everyone was on high alert for monster spawns.

It wasn't long before they faced their first mob spawn. The first monsters they faced were trolls - how lovely. They were all equipped with very sharp - and very bloody - spiked bats and swords.

Otabek dealt the first blow to the troll witch at the back - that troll could have caused real problems later on if left alone - and with his insanely high stealth, dealt bonus critical damage, felling the troll instantly. Yuri joined in with an AOE attack, raining bullets on the troll horde.

All hell broke lose after that.

Minami rushed forward for a storm-kick, temporarily stunning a group of trolls and giving Victor the chance to finish some of them off. JJ and Emil plucked off the rest with arrows from afar.

Yuuri sent several fireballs towards a group of trolls that headed their way from the side, dealing a large amount of damage - they went down due to the burn damage moments after.

Leo, who wasn't actively attacking, dodged and deflected attacks instead and divided the enemies' attention. He and Victor were baiting the enemies, getting them together into groups so that Yuri and JJ could deal the bulk of the damage while Leo, Otabek and Victor finished off whatever that was still standing.

Chris and Seung-gil both teamed up very well to handle the strays that the others didn't manage to kill. Chris used his magic to charm some trolls into fighting for him while Seung-gil used his potions to finish the trolls off.

Amidst the chaos, the guild's one and only cleric was spamming heal spells non-stop. Guang-Hong hadn't moved much since the battle started; that alone was testament to how well everyone else was doing their job.

By the time the fight ended, the room had piles of troll corpses everywhere. Yuuri remained on guard until the battle summary window popped up and the monster corpses disappeared.

"Hell yeah, I did the most damage again!" Yuri exclaimed suddenly, a victorious grin on his face. Yuri suddenly turned to look at JJ, smirking.

"It's only the first battle. Don't get so cocky so soon," came JJ's response. JJ had dealt the second-highest amount of damage.

Yuuri didn't get any round rewards - he hadn't done anything particularly noteworthy anyway in that fight - so his EXP and gold was just at 1.0x earn rate. Yuri - since he dealt the most total damage - would have gotten 2.5x EXP and 2.0x gold from that battle.

"You're just jealous," Yuri barked back.

"Boys, not now," Victor scolded the both of them. Yuri and JJ both rolled their eyes, but shut up anyway. They continued to silently glare at each other.

Was this going to be a normal occurrence? Did those two always fight like this?

"Yeah, they do. It's almost a running joke now," Phichit helpfully informed him. Huh. Yuuri must have spoken aloud without realising it then.

Mobs came and went. Skills and spells were cast, salty words were thrown at each other (courtesy of Yuri and JJ) and after half an hour of backtracking later (because Yuri accidentally activated a random teleport trap), they were finally at their first mini-boss.

"This mini-boss has a higher upper level cap than the previous mobs, so Guang-Hong, Leo, you two should stay as far back as possible for this one and make sure to not get hit. It deals cripple on first hit and debilitate on its second - a combo that will one-shot you," Victor recited the information and the pair nodded in understanding.

"That goes for you too, Yuri," Victor added as an afterthought, casting a singular look of warning at the gunslinger. In the background, JJ sniggered. Yuri grumbled out a reply. Victor carried on.

"None of the parties that went in before us have managed to pinpoint its major weakness, so good luck with that. Its minor weakness is fire," and as Victor said this, he looked pointedly in Yuuri's direction. Yuuri gave an affirmative nod.

"So, what is this going to be then? A battle of attrition?" Seung-gil asked.

"Quite possibly, since no one in CRO has enough information on this raid to map out a pattern yet."

"Oh joy, so we're the guinea pigs," Yuri remarked bitterly.

"Be on guard as soon as we're in."

Yuuri swapped his staff for his ruby gloves. Everyone refreshed their buffs and status effects and after that was done, Victor and Minami approached the pair of double doors. They slowly pushed the doors open. With an echoing rumble, the doors gave way, revealing a cavernous room. At the far end, was a single-horned minotaur. Its eyes were closed, though Yuuri could hear the exhales coming from the large beast - it was as if it were sleeping. Yuuri wasn't naive enough to believe that it was really asleep.

As soon as Minami stepped over the threshold, the minotaur lunged towards them, battle-axe lifted high over its head, ready for a mighty swing.

With a roar, Minami did a roundhouse and deflected the axe just slightly from its original trajectory, which would have hit Yuri head on.

'Shit, it's fast!' Yuuri let out a string of curses. Its speed was as high as Minami's and Minami was already the guild's fastest character. This was not good.

Everyone scattered.

The minotaur seemed fixated on Yuuri for some reason - crap. Whatever the reason was, Yuuri was not going to be able to outrun and dodge it forever.

And... here comes the hit.

Yuuri's vision bled red as the impact hit him directly at his side. Skidding harshly across the floor, Yuuri let out a pained whimper. The game automatically cuts the pain felt from enemy attacks by over ten times - but goddamn did that hurt more than he'd expected. Yuuri wasn't used to being hit, so that came as quite the shock. His shield absorbed the bulk of the damage, thankfully, but that didn't mean the landing didn't affect him. It knocked the air out of him, but Yuuri was quick to get back on his feet.

A greenish light filled his vision and immediately, the pain subsided.

Yuuri glanced at Guang Hong and nodded his thanks. He drank a mana elixir before leaping straight back into action. His shields had drained almost half of his mana from absorbing the hit earlier.

He cast a quick glance at all of his guild-mates - the pop-ups of their health bars showed that they were coping fine; Guang Hong was doing an excellent job. Yuuri's and Chris' buffs were still up. However, just because everyone was doing okay, it didn't mean that they should let the fight drag on unnecessarily. Dashing towards the centre of the room, Yuuri readied himself for a twenty-four-word fire-based spell. It was usually a spell cast and channeled in pairs - with each caster saying twelve words each - but Yuuri thought the extra firepower - quite literally - was needed here.

"Victor, after two and a half minutes, lure him towards me as close as you can," Yuuri told Victor, to which the silver-haired swordsman responded with an incredulous look.

"Are you insane?!" Victor barely managed to say as he rolled out of the way of another axe swing.

"Possibly," he said, shrugging.

In the background, some of his guild-mates who had overheard that declaration of his, looked at him, aghast.

Yuuri took a deep breath and then began reciting the spell - he couldn't afford to make a mistake on this one. The effects of failing this particular spell could set him up for a quick death. As he had practised countless times before, he swiftly drew the patterns he needed for this particular spell to work before chanting the pseudo-latin again.

"Yuuri!"

Yuuri cracked open an eye. The minotaur was less than ten metres away---

_'Closer...'_

Five metres---

_'Just a bit more...'_

Three metres---

_'Now!'_

Yuuri snapped his fingers and watched as a tornado of fire rose up from around him to consume the beast. With his hands, he began guiding the fire to wrap itself around the minotaur, smothering it in a blanket of searing flames. Throwing all caution to the wind, he poured more and more mana into the spell until he had none left. Yuuri stumbled back at the force of the spell channeling suddenly being cut, eyes never leaving the minotaur. Its coat of fur had blackened to a crisp, blood trailing down its body in rivers.

Despite all of that, it was _still_ alive.

"Yuuri, don't just stand there!" Phichit's voice called out to him just as one of his fury-bears - the dark brown one - lunged towards the minotaur.

Yuuri scurried back, quickly putting distance between himself and the boss creature. He summoned two more mana elixirs into his hands and gulped down the contents of both crystal vials. He was ready to cast another spell - albeit a weaker one, but with a shorter casting time - if need be. But, Yuuri didn't have to, in the end.

With claws sharp enough to tear through steel, Phichit's fury-bears dealt the final blow. The minotaur fell.

There was a collective sound of exhales from all around the room the moment the battle summary screen popped up in their field of vision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fighting scenes are hard ( ; n ; ) I've never done a full chapter on a battle scene before so this is an entirely new experience for me.  
> After trimming/editing, the chapter became so much shorter (whether that is a good or bad thing remains to be seen for now).


	4. Glimpse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuri learns that Victor is a potential stalker.
> 
> Oh, and then there's combat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (insert nervous laughter here) My uni work swallowed me up and spat me out only after it drained me dry.  
> But anyway, here's the next chapter. Not much action happens here though, sorry :X
> 
> Victor isn't actually a stalker though. He has just been pining over Yuuri for far too long.  
> Cough. Time to add 'Pining Victor' to the tags. Cough.
> 
> Also, I might need to take a break next week again because midterms! (sigh) I'll see what I can do! :D

Of course, their streak of perfect battles couldn't last forever. They were bound to hit trouble sooner or later. In all honesty, it wasn't just Yuuri's fault. Victor had a role in it, too, but... Yuuri was mainly to blame here.

One moment of distraction - that was all it took.

This had nothing to do with character level. This was carelessness, plain and simple.

The moment he felt something sharp hit him in the side of his neck, Yuuri knew that shit was about to hit the fan. He instantly recognised the pain coursing through his body - it wasn't the skin-peeling, flesh-tearing kind of feeling that would indicate that some sort of weapon had hit him, it was the _magical_ kind. It felt like his veins had been filled with liquid fire. The system immediately cut down the pain until they felt like toothpicks lightly poking underneath his skin, but goddamnit it was uncomfortable as hell---

Mana Burn. Something - someone? - cast Mana Burn at him. Crap, how much mana did he have earlier? It was at max just now, wasn't it? Shit. Yuuri did the math in his head. With the mana he had, the paralysis - that would kick in any time now - would last about two minutes. Two damned minutes. His entire team would be without shields and curse protection for two whole minutes against a horde of undead - all because _he was distracted_.

Somehow still remaining standing, Yuuri immediately located his attacker - an undead lich - and cast a lightning bolt at it before his mana reserves went dry, killing it instantly. Right before Yuuri fell to his knees, he caught a glimpse of a group of undead jumping out from the gaping hole in the ceiling of the dungeon.

Ambush.

"Shit, get back!" Yuuri heard Victor shout. Two arms grabbed Yuuri from behind. Yuuri recognised them to be Seung-gil's. Seung-gil moved him to one corner of the room before jumping straight back into battle. One of Phichit's fury-bears - the grey-furred one - stood guard by Yuuri's side, fending off any undead that came near.

The undead was the most annoying monster class CRO could throw at players. They could come back to life if their core wasn't destroyed. The cores - a necromantic symbol drawn in blood - could be found at the back of their skulls, within the ribcage, at the back of the right leg or on the left arm. To top things off, the cores could only be destroyed using magic. The only alternative for non-magic users was to separate the core from the body. Good luck trying to do that in the chaos of a battle.

A ghoul was half a second away from tearing Yuuri's arm off when JJ landed a bolt right in its skull, sending it sprawling across the ground. Phichit's fury-bear tore up what remained of the ghoul and that was that. Yuuri scanned the room. They were outnumbered three to one; this was not good, not good at all.

Yuuri could feel the numbness in his legs already. Summoning a particular scroll he kept for emergencies like this, he shouted Chris' name. Lute in hand, the man came running, eyes never leaving the horde of the living dead.

"Cast it for me."

"W-What is that?"

"I wrote it. _Use_ it."

Without wasting anymore time, Chris took it and began reading. The scroll went up in flames the moment the bard finished reading it. The entire room was doused in a soft light that came quite literally out of nowhere. Yuuri really, really wanted to give Chris a thumbs up - and perhaps a hug - right now, but his limbs felt like lead so he couldn't.

The distinct sound of sizzling flesh filled the room. One by one, the undead began shrieking. Their movements became slow and sluggish. The holy light was not going to be enough to kill them - Yuuri was no priest after all - but the light would definitely help the others finish them off.

Everyone caught on fast enough and they made to quickly finish off the ghouls and undead warriors. Victor excelled here - with extremely precise lunges and swings of his blade, he dealt with the ghouls easily enough on his own. Yuri, Emil and JJ were less useful in killing the ghouls permanently because their attacks had virtually zero knockback or dismembering capabilities, so that left the rest with the job of laying the undead to rest. Chris' lute charm didn't work on undead enemies, so he was stuck with casting buffs.

The other two brown fury-bears were a sight to behold. Like their master, they took down undead after undead with just their melee attacks. Minami was doing equally well with just kicks and punches alone. Seung-gil took out a large herd of ghouls at the back with an acid bomb - it smelled downright awful, but it worked like a charm. Otabek severed the necks of as many ghouls that had their cores on their skull as he could. With his hammer, Leo smashed the skulls and bones of any undead that came too close to Guang-Hong.

After the two minute mark was up, the undead horde was down to just a quarter of their starting numbers. Yuuri got back up on his feet unsteadily, his limbs still partially numb and unresponsive. He chugged down two mana elixirs and immediately threw several lightning bolts across the room to finish off several ghouls at the back.

The aftermath wasn't pretty, but it was done.

Dismissing the battle summary window, Yuuri immediately turned to check on everyone else.

Minami had several deep cuts and gashes across his arms and torso. They were bleeding non-stop, leaving trails of blood all along his body - Yuuri knew that they didn't hurt that much, but it still made for a nasty image. Victor looked a bit tired but was otherwise fine. The same went for the rest. Guang-Hong busied himself with healing Minami's bleeding condition first. It would take a while, but it was nothing that he couldn't heal.

"I'm out of health potions," Yuri said. Yuuri summoned several into his hand and threw them all at Yuri. Yuri caught them all easily. The gunslinger nodded his thanks.

"Well, that sucked. We made it out alright, but we used up far too many potions for that battle," JJ delivered the bad news. Yuuri could see everyone nod in agreement when JJ said that.

"Sorry, I let that lich hit me. Things wouldn't have gone so bad if I had cast the shields before you guys went in to fight," Yuuri said, guilty and embarrassed.

"To be frank, if Victor hadn't been trying so hard to flirt with you, you wouldn't be half as distracted," Phichit said, levelling Victor with a scolding look. Yuuri blushed as bright as a tomato. Victor choked on his potion. Yuri smacked Victor on the side of his head with his gun. Chris just laughed his arse off.

No one said anything more after that. The room was filled only with the soft humming of Guang-Hong's healing spells.

.  
.  
.

"Yuuuuuuri, I'm so sorry..."

Victor was trailing after Yuuri like a lost puppy. A lost puppy that had spent hours wandering around aimlessly in cold rain. It was a pitiful sight, really.

"Pay attention to your surroundings, damn it. You don't want a repeat of the undead fight, do you?" Yuuri hissed and Victor visibly flinched. Phichit gave Yuuri an approving nod.

Victor eventually went back to the front to his usual position, but not without being all dramatic about it and moaning about how Yuuri was bullying him.

"...Is he always like this?" Yuuri asked.

"Sometimes, yeah," Emil answered with a shrug. "Most of us are fine with it because we know he takes the guild very seriously, despite how he can behave at times..."

Phichit heard what Emil had said and rolled his eyes, muttering something that sounded a lot like a string of curses.

"Why?"

"Who knows? We gave up trying to figure out why a long time ago. We now just have betting pools for our own amusement to see who can handle Victor's antics the longest," Emil informed Yuuri.

"Oh. I... didn't know about that."

Chris came up to him and slung an arm around his shoulders, laughing.

"Of course not, the person with the most bets placed on them is you," Chris answered with a shit-eating grin, "and that was _before_ you officially joined the guild, even!"

Yuuri didn't know what to say in response to that.

.  
.  
.

Victor and Otabek took down the firehound easily with their eighteen-hit combination attack. With a sword in each hand, Victor dealt twelve of those hits in rapid succession to bring it down to its knees. Otabek quickly followed up with six, precise slashes through the hound's neck, decapitating it. The head landed with a disgusting squelch and shook the floor on impact. Its body followed soon after.

The corpses littering the room then disappeared in a flurry of colours and the battle summary screen appeared.

"Hell yeah!" Victor exclaimed, fist high in the air, wide smile on his face.

"Awesome moves there, Victor! Where have you been hiding those moves, huh?" Chris playfully nudged Victor with his elbow.

The rest showered Victor and Otabek with praises for their perfectly-executed combo. Even JJ, who was mostly stoic post-battles - except when Yuri taunted him - gave Victor and Otabek an approving nod.

Yuuri didn't even have to join the battle at all. All Yuuri did in that mini-boss fight was just cast a ton of fire deflect and fire nullify shields.

"Are you going to record it?" Leo asked, putting his warhammer on the ground and then leaning his entire frame against the long titanium handle.

"Probably. We could use it in our next promotional video," Victor said as he did a quick twisting motion with his right hand and his eyes immediately focused on something in front of him that Yuuri couldn't see - most likely a menu window. He reached up to tap the invisible menu several times, waited for a few moments and then turned away.

"Saved it?"

"Yeah. The aerial view looks better than I thought. I'll see what I can do with it after all of this is over."

Something occured to Yuuri then. It was probably the way Victor had phrased his words. "Are you talking about in-game or real-life?" The words were out before Yuuri could stop himself.

Victor glanced at him, and without missing a beat, he replied, "Real life."

"Oh, okay. You do this sort of thing as your... job?" Yuuri threw his guess out there. He was genuinely curious about what Victor did outside of CRO.

For reasons beyond him, Victor laughed aloud at that.

"What makes you think I'm in the creative industry? Nah, I do this as a hobby."

Before Yuuri could even begin to process that, Phichit exclaimed suddenly, drawing Yuuri's attention to the beastmaster.

"See, I _told_ you! Yuri, you now owe me five thousand gold," Phichit said, smirking, hand outstretched towards the gunslinger. Yuri scoffed but dropped a sizeable bag of gold in his hand anyway.

Chris, ever the all-knowing one, helpfully filled in the gaps for Yuuri. "Phichit and Yuri had this bet on which of you will talk about your real lives first," Chris whispered to Yuuri. Yuuri had his suspicions about all of this since earlier - now was probably a good time to voice it out.

"How long has this been going on...?" And no, Yuuri did not mean the betting pools.

Guang-Hong placed a gentle hand on Yuuri's shoulder, as if to comfort him.

"A very long time," Guang-Hong said all too seriously, eyes suddenly haunted and dark.

_'W-What?'_

.  
.  
.

Yuuri tried his best not to dwell on it. He really did. He also made a conscious effort to stay away from Victor. Victor realised this, of course, but there was nothing Victor could say or do that would convince Yuuri otherwise.

After clearing a few more mob spawns, they finally reached the boss room. The doors leading to the boss room had this red skull marking which clearly marked it as one. Victor turned around and addressed everyone.

"Well. You guys know what to do."

Buffs and shields on. Yuuri drank several mana regenerative potions for good measure. He replaced his ruby gloves with something more powerful. With the dungeon being level-adaptive and all, Yuuri imagined he wouldn't be stuck playing support the entire time in this fight if they wanted to make it out alive. His guildmates could easily handle the higher levels of generic mobs, but taking on a dungeon boss that was a few dozen levels higher than a third of the people in the guild? That was just insane.

If they played their cards right, it was doable. It wasn't going to be easy though.

Minami gaped at the thing Yuuri was holding in his hands. Well, Yuuri didn't blame him - he'd reacted the same way when he first got it.

"W-What is that?"

"Hmmm? Oh this?" Yuuri handed it over to Minami, who then began inspecting it with much excitement. "I know it looks like a scythe in every possible way, but I assure you, it's not. It's classified as a staff. There are no scythes in this game, you should know that."

" _That's_ a staff? Where in the seven hells did you find that?" said Leo.

"A friend thought it'd be hilarious if a mage - that would be me - went around swinging this around, casting death magic," Yuuri explained, remembering fondly how that conversation with Takeshi went that day - and how Yuuko had reacted afterwards. "It's one of my favourite staffs. The mana drain is absurd, but the damage boost more than makes up for it."

"I know that staff."

Yuuri turned to Victor. Victor's eyes were positively glittering. A smile threatened to break out on his face.

"That's the staff you used during the Endless Raid."

Oh. That was a _really_ long time ago, when he was _still_  in a guild.

"I don't even remember what equips I was using when I was in that raid," Yuuri said, mildly shocked that someone actually remembered the exact _staff_ he was using then.

"That was the raid of all raids. You were still in your old guild then." Yuuri was about to ask how Victor knew about that when JJ took his crossbow by the straps and swung it at the back of Victor's head with full force. The impact alone sent Victor sprawling across the floor.

"Victor, that's enough. Minami, if you'd be so kind," JJ deadpanned.

Minami jogged over, bent down and picked up Victor, throwing the silver-haired swordsman over his shoulder, before returning to the front of the formation.

Seeing that Victor was unwilling - and unable - to move at the moment, Phichit went up to the doors instead, his fury-bears right behind him.

There was a collective sound of everyone readying their weapons.

"Alright, here we go-"

The doors swung open.


	5. Gravity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here comes the boss fight.

There were times where Yuuri wondered what he did in his lifetime as a CRO player to deserve all this bad luck.

He was wondering about that right now, in fact, even as he dangled almost fifty metres off the ground, suspended in mid-air by magic.

He never player-killed (PK-ed) anyone. Hell, the only players he ever killed in-game were all player killers themselves.

He donated generously whenever there were gold sink events.

He always offered health potions to random dying players he encountered on random stretches of road in the middle of pretty much everywhere.

So, why?

The magic holding him up in the air dissipated, and down he fell.

He muttered the words for an air spell, directing it to blow from below in order to cushion his landing.

He landed safely without a scratch. Several loud crashes and thuds sounded around him as the others crashed back onto the ground.

"This is so unfair..." Yuuri heard Phichit grumble beside him.

"There has to be a pattern. We just haven't-" Yuuri dodged that tail swipe just in the nick of time, by ducking and rolling forward. "-found it yet."

Yuuri drew a destruction rune followed by the rune for air and earth, in the air.

"Astheneia!" he chanted, hurling a tiny sphere of pure black at high speed towards the boss. The sphere broke apart upon contact, splashing what appeared to be dark liquid across its body that seemed to spread outwards. The creature howled as the disease spread, its armoured flesh rotting and disintegrating from within. Yuuri's guess was right - the carapace-like armour _was_ organic. The spell wouldn't have been nearly as effective if it wasn't.

The next spell to leave his lips were the words for a concentrated fireball spell. He waited for the disease to spread over a large enough area before throwing the mass of flames at it.

"It's vulnerable to disease! I'm going to spam Hyper Disease; aim for the darkened flesh if you can! But don't touch-" A huge spiked tail slammed the ground in front of him, sending him sprawling across the ground before he could finish his sentence. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something large and sharp and very deadly rush towards him.

The boss had aimed one of its spiked tails at Yuuri, but before it managed to hit him, Victor rushed in and deflected it with a precise slash of his sword. Victor quickly helped him up and then it was back to being on the move. A split second later, the floor they had just been standing on a moment ago exploded into flames.

Yuuri quickly realised that he needed to retreat from the front lines to consume some mana potions before spamming more spells, and so he did just that. He ran around Yuri - who was busy preparing a Meteor Shot - and took cover behind a slab of rock that had fallen from the dungeon ceiling.

The boss - whatever it was - had twelve different spiked tails and greatly resembled a wolf, but with reptile-like skin and a dragon-like head. It only attacked using its tails and had poor mobility. This poor mobility did not apply to its tails, though - those were lightning fast and extremely agile. Yuuri was also sure each and every one of the tails had enough physical force to one-hit kill if it hit them directly. Each tail also apparently had a different special ability. From what happened earlier, it seemed that one of them could cast long-range Inferno.

Phichit, Minami, Victor and Seung-gil were keeping most of the tails preoccupied at the front, but there were still two tails that were constantly harassing their ranged attackers. Both of those tails could shoot splash projectiles - acid and poison - across the entire length of the room, so that meant dodging or taking cover was their only option.

Renewing his deflect shield, Yuuri cast a quick glance at his fellow ranged attackers, just to make sure their magical shields were still up before he went back to the front lines. Everyone except JJ had more than seventy percent left in their shields. After refreshing the crossbowman's shield, and after gulping down three more elixirs, Yuuri went back to the front.

Hyper Disease was like the normal Disease spell, but ten times more potent. The major downside to it was its inferior casting range.

By the time Yuuri was casting the spell again, all signs of disease on the monster's flesh was already gone.

"Huh." _'Immunity, eh?'_

Fortunately, Hyper Disease could keep up with it - he simply needed to keep casting it to stack its effects until Immunity could not get rid of the effect fast enough.

Across the room, Phichit's furybears were doing an excellent job of distracting the more agile appendages. They were moving so fast that it was difficult to even keep track of them.

Victor and Seung-gil teamed up for a brilliant ten-hit combo, shredding one tail - the deep blue one - into pieces. The tail - having been slashed cleanly off near the base by Victor - fell to the ground and shattered into pixel dust. The creature howled in pain. It flinched back when JJ landed several more Titan Bolts into its eyes.

When Phichit got close enough to be within earshot, Yuuri called out to him.

"I'm going to hit the base of that bright red tail over there with HD - do you think you can finish the job?"

Phichit glanced at the tail Yuuri was referring to. He smirked, cracking his knuckles. "Oh hell yeah I can. C'mon, I'm ready when you are-"

They both jumped away when a tail came from above to impale the ground where they were both standing at just moments ago.

Yuuri drew the runes and quickly cast the spell, hoping that his aim was spot on.

It wasn't. The sphere grazed it - but that was good enough. The disease spread quickly and made quick work of the tail's outer carapace armour.

A bloodcurdling roar ripped its way out of the beastmaster as he went into Rage. He summoned one of his furybears to him.

Said furybear _picked Phichit up_ and then proceeded to fling him towards the tail.

Unlike Yuuri, the bear's aim was on point. Phichit brought his arms high over his head and timed his slam just right.

The wet crunch of bone and flesh never sounded so satisfying. Phichit grabbed the now bent-out-of-shape tail and twisted it further before giving it one final, harsh tug to rip the tail out completely.

Yuuri winced just looking at it.

The boss fell back several steps, screeching from the pain. At once, it withdrew all of its remaining tails, crouching into a defensive position, using its tails to protect its more massive body.

Phichit jumped back to safe ground, grinning like the devil he was.

"Holy shit; that was so badass!" He let out a whoop, putting smiles on the faces of everyone else. "I'm definitely making a clip out of that! I can't wait to see all the views I'll get-"

The creature's eyes turned bright blue for a split moment. Yuuri had only a split second to react. He braced himself for impact.

Immediately, everyone was sent flying upwards, colliding harshly into the ceiling. Although Yuuri knew what was going to happen, it still knocked the breath out of him anyway.

"Damn this gravity control, this is utter bull-"

"Goddamn it Yuri, just shut up- You're screaming into my ear for god's sake-" JJ shouted back, "Besides, you're a gunslinger - so just shoot already," he added as he continued firing bolts at the boss anyway.

"-the developers must be having a sadistic streak. This is BS," Yuri finished. He loaded his gun and continued shooting.

Yuuri rolled his eyes.

"Ah, you youngins who joined CRO after the void-type dungeons were removed as a feature... Count yourselves lucky you didn't have to experience _that_ ," Chris said, shuddering.

"Oh god, don't remind me..." Yuuri muttered, facepalming.

"I got that dungeon type only once, but it scarred me for life," Victor joined in the conversation, since they were just... floating around. Only the ranged attackers could do something while they were like this. The boss was rapidly healing its own HP over time while they were stuck like this, but it couldn't be helped.

"Those dungeons were fun," Otabek commented suddenly. He hadn't said a single word during the fight until now.

"That's because you're an assassin - wall-running and double-jumping are in your blood," Phichit replied.

Everyone fell silent again.

"Well, I think we should count ourselves lucky that the boss doesn't attack us while it's doing this. We're practically helpless like this," Minami pointed out, flailing his limbs around to prove his point. Yuuri nodded in agreement.

"I'll just keep spamming heals," Guang-Hong said, shrugging, and went back to chanting.

The boss' eyes turned blue again, and down everyone went. Even Yuuri's magic couldn't save him from the fall this time.

Yuuri quickly got up and hobbled over to a large piece of broken wall to take cover. He shot Guang-Hong an appreciative smile when the healer threw a Minor Cure his way.

"I counted ninety seconds active duration and estimate that it has about a ten-minute cooldown," Yuuri said. "So, we have about another ten minutes to dish out damage before we get flung like ragdolls into the ceiling again."

"HUD mod?" Guang-Hong asked as he finished an AOE heal.

"Nope. I half counted, half estimated. I don't like additional HUD mods - I think my field of vision is cluttered enough as it is."

"Wow."

"As expected of an arch mage," Otabek commented before dashing towards a relatively smooth stretch of wall. He wall-ran against it before leaping off to flank the boss from behind, getting a few slashes in, while he was at it.

Yuuri wasn't too worried about Otabek being on his own. Otabek should have Shadowphase at his current level, so he could easily escape into the shadows if things got too heated.

Yuuri continued alternating his spells between HD and Inferno, focusing his attacks on one tail before moving on to the next. Victor, Minami and Phichit tried their hardest to land as many attacks whenever HD was in-effect, but it was difficult considering they had to be close enough to the tail. Chris had switched to medium-range offensive songs some time ago, and was currently wielding a flute.

Slowly, but surely, they were chipping away at the boss' HP.

The fight carried on in a similar fashion until there were only a few tails left. The guild was in just as bad a state as the boss, at this point.

Yuuri was down to his last elixir. Leo had been taken down by one of the spiked tails earlier when he moved to block it from hitting their healer - Guang-Hong couldn't heal him in time. The boss had also switched attack patterns when it had six tails left, and insta-killed Seung-gil and Minami, and critically injured Phichit when all the tails suddenly switched to sweeping pincer attacks instead.

The only ones who still had green levels of HP were Yuuri, Chris, Emil, and JJ. The rest - Victor, Otabek, Guang-Hong and Yuri - were at yellow while Phichit was at red levels. Guang-Hong was preoccupied trying to keep Phichit and everyone else, alive.

The boss had less than half a bar of HP left.

"C'mon guys, just a little more..." Yuuri said to the others after hurling another HD at one of the two remaining tails and then taking cover to prepare his next spell.

"Screw this; my HP's gone anyways-" Yuuri heard the gunslinger say. Yuuri spared a glance in Yuri's direction, and intentionally broke his spell casting when he saw Yuri dash out of cover and into the open.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Yuuri mentally counted down the seconds left until the paralysis that came as the penalty for the cancelled spell casting, disappeared.

"Using my ulti, that's what. I'm pretty sure I'm going to get a faceful of acid and fire, but I think we need this-"

_No, no, no - they couldn't afford to lose one of their main damage dealers now! The boss could still have tricks up its sleeve!_

On the other side of the room, Otabek had just used his own ultimate - taking out the second last tail in the process. Victor was working with Emil to finish off the last tail. Otabek's shield could use a refresh, but Yuuri didn't have enough time to do it for both Otabek and Yuri. He chose Yuri.

"Chris, throw a shield at Yuri, now!" Yuuri did the same, stacking the buffs. Yuuri counted at least four shields - one physical defence, two magical defence, one magic deflect - and hoped that would be enough.

"Distract it the best you can!" were Yuuri's final words to the rest before he sprinted over to Yuri.

Skidding to a halt beside the gunslinger, Yuri went wide-eyed when he saw Yuuri appear by his side.

"What the hell?!"

"Shut up and let's do this."

Time seemed to slow to a crawl, adrenaline pumping through his veins as Yuuri considered his options.

_'Let's see... Yuri's ultimate skill was set to... ah, Bullet Storm. That takes ten seconds to activate fully...'_

Yuuri positioned himself a few paces behind the gunslinger, staff firmly gripped in his hands in front of him.

_'Ten-rune sequence. Twelve seconds.'_

"Shit," Yuuri muttered under his breath.

_'Two seconds at an average sixteen thousand damage per second means about about sixty four thousand amped damage loss.'_

He was already casting before he had even finished that line of thought. It was going to have to work.

Protection. War. Air. Earth. Purity. Power. Air. Water. Stability. Creation.

Horizontal right, up, diagonal left, up.

"Amplification Barrier!"

A brilliant, shimmering, translucent wall appeared in front of Yuri. It spread outwards from its centre in a gentle arc, like a shield, spanning about three metres in radius. As Yuri's bullets passed through it, they took on the same glow as the barrier, gaining a times three pure damage boost.

A shot of acid hit Yuuri's right shoulder, forcing him to take a step back from the sheer force of impact. His right field of vision was filled with red, but he gritted his teeth and kept the spell up anyway. That hit alone brought his HP down by a fifth.

Three seconds.

Yuuri sidestepped another shot of acid. Another hit Yuri head on. They both held their ground.

Two seconds.

Both of their HP were in the red now.

One second.

The moment the final bullet was fired, Yuuri rolled out of the way just as a fireball hit the ground he was just standing on.

He didn't see the acid projectile coming though.

.  
.  
.  
  
 _'Your health points have fallen below zero. Your guild currently has seven members still alive._  
 _You will now be returned to the Null Void where you will await for the ongoing raid to end._

_Note: You will forfeit any and all rewards earned should you quit the game now._  
 _Should you have any queries, feel free to call for live in-game support and we will assist you the best we can._  
 _Thank you for your understanding.'_  
  
.  
.  
.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience!
> 
> Uni work swarmed me out of nowhere. Finals are approaching, too. fml
> 
> Again, thank you for all the support! <3
> 
> I'll see y'all after finals. Until next time!


	6. Ice-Cream

The next thing he knew, Yuuri was standing in a room of pure white. The sudden change in environment had his head spinning. His ears were ringing. It took a while for him to register that someone was calling his name.

"-uuri. Yuuri, what are you doing here?!" Phichit's voice drifted over. It sounded like it came from somewhere behind him... He turned around and was met with four worried expressions - Phichit's and his three furry companions'.

"Hey, are you okay?" Phichit waved a hand in front of his face. Something soft and fluffy rubbed against the side of his neck. Glancing down, Yuuri spotted one of Phichit's furybears - now back in its smaller form - perched on his shoulder. Yuuri raised a hand and petted it. It responded with a delighted, rumbling purr.

Yuuri remembered then that Phichit had asked him a question.

"I-I threw myself into the open to cast Amp Shield because Yuri decided to use his Bullet Storm," Yuuri explained in a single breath, shrugging. "I didn't have much mana left. I had no more elixirs on me. It would take too long if I let my mana recover normally. Besides..."

Yuuri paused to put away his staff.

"...Yuri is in a far better position to end the fight, all things considered. So, Chris and I threw an extra shield on him, and I dashed out to amplify his bullets."

"Woah, okay..."

"I'm definitely looking forward to see my assist points for that spell," Yuuri chuckled.

They began walking towards the exit - a plain set of double doors with equally plain white handles.

"So, the Bleeding got you, huh?" Yuuri asked, to be sure.

Phichit nodded, sighing with dismay. "Yeah. Guang-Hong tried his best. Between healing the others and healing me, there wasn't much he could do." Phichit's furybears seemed to deflate as well, their ears folded downwards. "The others should be watching the live play in the Viewing Room. Let's go join them," he added, grasping the door handle. Phichit shoved the doors open and---

Honestly, Yuuri shouldn't have been even surprised.

The doors opened to reveal a huge circular room. Dark wood panelling with cream-coloured walls. Polished hardwood flooring. Mysteriously air-conditioned. Huh.

A short flight of steps led to a crater of pillows and bean bag chairs as well as an underfloor aquarium. He didn't know enough about fishes to name the creatures swimming beneath the glass - they looked rare and exotic though. The room branched off in four directions at the north, south, east and west. They were currently standing at the south door.

The shelves lining the walls contained a mishmash of items ranging from food, to books, to strange looking decor items, to even stranger machines and even... clothing. Yuuri pretended not to see the other more incriminating articles of clothing.

"Yeah... Welcome to the guild's Respawn Hall..." Phichit sounded genuinely embarrassed.

Clearly this wasn't just a single 'hall'.

"...How big is this place?"

"It has three wings - north, west and the east wing. The north wing is the residential wing and the other two are for recreational purposes."

"So... Victor got his hands on the Diamond Level Guild Welfare Package and re-designed pretty much everything," Yuuri dead-panned.

Phichit nodded. "And he didn't use the guild funds to get it either." The implication behind Phichit's words was obvious. Yuuri chose to politely refrain from commenting on that.

.  
.  
.

His sword felt like dead weight in his arms.

Gritting his teeth, he raised it into position, arms straining from the effort. Adrenaline pumping through his veins, every sound in the room seemed amplified as he carefully watched the creature's movement.

Watching Yuuri disappear into pixels had made his blood run cold, gut plunging deep into an icy pit that had him stunned for several seconds. For a split moment, Victor had forgotten all of this was just a game.

With a ear-splitting roar, Victor dashed out from behind cover, sword ready by his side.

Using a pile of rubble as a foothold, Victor leapt off high into the air, bringing the sword down on the creature's head. The blade cut deep into the flesh just above the creature's right eye, and it howled in pain as it began thrashing around to throw Victor off its head. Blood gushed out from the wound in rivulets, making it difficult for him to have a firm grip on the sword, but against all odds, Victor managed to hold on.

Victor used his free hand to summon his secondary blade into action.

Using the still embedded sword as a pivot point, Victor swung himself over and stabbed his second blade directly into the creature's right eye. He released his grip and allowed himself to fall.

He rolled to a stop on the ground with as much grace as one could manage with an injured shoulder.

The floor shook like an earthquake when the creature finally collapsed onto the ground.

With a soft ping, the battle summary screen appeared inches away from his face. Only then did Victor smile.

In a flurry of pixels, the dungeon around them fell apart as they were teleported away.

.  
.  
.

Everyone watching erupted into cheers. Yuuri himself was smiling. The fight had dragged on for a while after he had died, but Victor's bold move to stab the boss - not once, but twice - while straddling its head finally finished it off.

_'The event has ended. Teleport now?'_

Yuuri tapped the button the moment it appeared.

A few seconds later found him standing in the raid waiting area. The others began arriving one by one. Yuuri quickly walked up to the scoreboard, grinning when he saw the numbers. Yuuri scored the highest offensive assist points. Highest attack, healing and defensive assist scores went to Yuri, Guang-Hong and Chris respectively.

His loot should be placed in his inventory at any moment now...

Not dissimilar to a child on Christmas Day, Yuuri pulled up his inventory and waited. His inventory window glowed softly for a moment, indicating that something had been deposited in his bag, and he immediately began inspecting his newly-obtained loot.

Yuuri wasn't expecting any loot that could replace any of his current gear. What he _was_ looking forward to were the raid-specific, cosmetic drops. Those drops could easily fetch a very high price in the global marketplace---

Bubbly laughter drifted over.

Yuuri's hand froze, fingers hovering just over the cosmetic loot box that had just appeared in his inventory.

The arch-mage looked around.

Everyone was smiling, laughing. Yuri and Chris both had an arm slung over Otabek's shoulders, trapping a disgruntled Otabek between them as they cheerfully marched about, going from group to group to ask them what they got from the raid. Guang-Hong let out a squeal - he had gotten a new staff, from the looks of it. JJ and Phichit were off to one side, trading, it seemed - if the bags of gold being exchanged were any indicator. The rest - Seung Gil, Leo, Emil, Minami and Victor were all happily chatting.

Yuuri felt strangely detached from the scene that was playing out before him. He suddenly felt like he was intruding on something private. That thought alone was ridiculous.

"Yuuri?" Victor called out to him.

"What is it?" Yuuri closed his inventory window and forced himself to turn to look at Victor.

"You seemed a bit... distracted. Everything alright?"

"...Oh. It's nothing. It's just..." Yuuri trailed off again, his gaze finding its way back to where the rest of his guildmates were.

"In all my past guilds, we never actually stayed together to go through our loot, you know?" Yuuri began explaining. "Most of us usually went our own separate ways the instant the battle was over."

"So, the top guild in CRO never had post-battle parties?" Out of all the things Victor could have inferred from that, that was what he chose to say.

"No, but-"

"Well that settles it then," Victor said to him before turning around to face the others. "Drinks are on me for tonight!" he bellowed and was met with cheering all around. Victor smiled, seemingly satisfied by the reaction he stirred in his fellow guild members.

"From now on, I'll make sure we have as many after-parties as we can afford for all our future guild battles. This first one is my treat, of course."

"But that's just a waste of-"

"You take this game far too seriously, Yuuri," Victor said, sighing. "I don't know how your old guilds worked, but what's the point of playing a game if you're going to treat it like work all the time? I mean, if you're a Youtuber like Phichit then that's altogether different, but-"

"I just think that you shouldn't spend your hard-earned funds like that," Yuuri argued. "I mean, you could use it to invest in expansion packs or even invest it in the guild to increase our member capacity so that-"

"Yuuuuuri," Victor drawled. "When was the last time you took a break?"

Yuuri blinked. Once. Twice. Took a break? From what exactly?

"...Erm, I don't under-"

"And I don't mean time spent offline. I mean you just playing the game casually, not chasing after top ranking positions, grinding for legendary drops and what have you." Victor's stare settled on him heavily. Yuuri's shoulders slumped slightly as he was thinking of a response---

"You need to learn to live a little. Tell me, do you even treat yourself to anything in this game?"

Yuuri hesitantly shook his head. Victor sighed.

"You're the top player in the game - what _do_ you do with all the money and loot you must have from participating in all those raids and events?"

"Well, it goes back into stat investment and sometimes I buy property and-"

"Oh god," Victor dragged a hand down his face in resignation. "And here I thought you would be just like JJ. Nope, it turns out that you're even more of a lost cause than he is."

Yuuri nervously shuffled about, words stuck in his throat. What could he say in reply to that anyway?

"Have you ever gotten drunk in this game before?" Victor suddenly changed the subject. Oh no. Yuuri didn't like where this conversation was heading.

"...No." Yuuri took a few steps back---

Yuuri backed into something solid - or rather, a person. Phichit had somehow sneaked up behind him and proceeded to wrap an arm around Yuuri's shoulders. Shit. He must have overheard their conversation.

"Well, I believe it's time we _rectified_ that, right, Victor?"

"You can't get drunk in CRO!" Yuuri spluttered. "The ceiling to reach drunkenness is absurdly high in this game-"

"Yes, you can," Phichit and Victor answered in unison.

"It has been done before. Someone _tried_ and they _succeeded_."

"You're our newest member. It's only right we celebrate your first raid with us. We got Yurio drunk as hell the last time-"

Yuuri tried to escape. Phichit tightened his grip.

"Oh no, no, no. You're not getting out of this one," Phichit bloody smirked, a flash of white canines. It sent shivers down Yuuri's spine. Tearing his gaze off the beastmaster, Yuuri's eyes darted to Victor's, eyes pleading for help.

Victor seemed to take pity on him. He put a hand on Phichit's forearm. "If Yuuri is adamant on not joining us, it's fine. We shouldn't force him-"

Yuuri pried Phichit's arm off him the moment the other released his grip and quickly stepped away. Phichit's expression took on one of surprise after seeing the look on Yuuri's face.

"Yuuri, I'm sorry if I-"

Yuuri shook his head, but didn't say anything. A few quick hand gestures later and---

The colourful, vibrant world of CRO faded from view, replaced by an endless landscape of black.

_'You are now logging off from Code Regius Online.'_

.  
.  
.

With a gasp, Yuuri grasped the headgear and pulled it off his head. He moved to set it on the bedside table, taking care to neatly coil the cable protruding from the side of the machine before setting the machine down atop the nest of cables.

Yuuri got up and switched on the lights.

He moved to stand in front of the mirror. Taking in his reflection, he noted how his t-shirt was clearly a size too large for him. His bangs stuck to the side of his face messily from sweat. Sweat? Had he forgotten to switch on the air-conditioner or even the fan? His gaze darted to both appliances - oh, he had.

With slow, deliberate steps, Yuuri walked over to his wardrobe to find a clean shirt to change into. He carelessly threw the dirty one into the hamper in the corner of the room.

He left his room, shutting the door with a soft click.

Putting a hand on the bannister, and another on the wall to his left, Yuuri climbed down the stairs one step at a time, keeping his gaze fixed in front of him at all times. Entering the kitchen, Yuuri watched as his mother pulled out a tray of cookies out from the oven. She placed the tray on the granite counter, taking off the mittens and hanging them on a hook on the wall after she was done. She spotted him when she turned back around.

"Yu-chan? Out so soon?"

Yuuri felt the dark storm cloud of emotions rolling away. His mother didn't deserve to be his outlet for him to vent his frustration and his worries, as much as she repeatedly told him that she didn't mind. He stubbornly kept his thoughts to himself.

"Erm, yeah. I logged off early," Yuuri said as a way of answering, shrugging with one shoulder.

"I'll set some of these aside for you in the reading lounge. Why don't you rest your legs there?"

"Okay."

Nibbling on a cookie, Yuuri stared at the pages of the book in front of him, not seeing anything.

"You seem distracted. Is everything okay?" His sister's voice called out to him.

He looked up then. Mari.

"I joined another guild-"

"Oh, another one?"

"-and I think I just blew my chances again on this one. They wanted to have a post battle party, but I didn't exactly feel comfortable with the idea, so I left."

"Well, it _is_ pretty awkward to be invited to a party where everyone already knows each other except for you... I'm sure they won't mind. You only just joined them after all. You'll have plenty of other chances in the future," Mari - ever the understanding older sister - practically laid his own thoughts out for him. She wasn't _wrong_ , but she wasn't quite right, either.

"You did explain to them, right?"

Yuuri glanced away.

"Oh, Yuuri..."

"It was less about not knowing them and more about the fact that they wanted to try and get me _drunk_."

Yuuri could feel Mari's stare on him. She waited, as if waiting for him to elaborate.

"It just reminded me too much of _that_ night, okay?" Yuuri forced out the words, setting down the book.

Mari kept quiet. Yuuri could practically hear her thoughts.

"...So, how did practice go?" Yuuri said, eyeing the pair of ice-skates Mari was holding behind her.

.  
.  
.

Later that night, after dinner, Yuuri logged on again.

Night had fallen over this part of CRO.

A quick glance at his guild list told him that most of them had logged off a few hours after he did.

> From: Victor [Guildmaster of Fimbulwinter]  
>  Hey.  
>  Timestamp: December 18th 2088 9:58PM
> 
> From: Victor [Guildmaster of Fimbulwinter]  
>  You okay?  
>  Timestamp: December 18th 2088 9:58PM
> 
> From: Victor [Guildmaster of Fimbulwinter]  
>  Want to talk about it?  
>  Timestamp: December 18th 2088 9:59PM

Yuuri switched off voice detection and brought up the keyboard overlay instead. He didn't exactly trust his voice to not betray him.

> To: Victor [Guildmaster of Fimbulwinter]  
>  Not really. Not today.  
>  Timestamp: December 18th 2088 9:59PM
> 
> From: Victor [Guildmaster of Fimbulwinter]  
>  Okay.  
>  Timestamp: December 18th 2088 10:00PM

And that was that. Yuuri made his way back to the central part of town. After walking around for a while, he noticed someone following him. Looking around, he spotted a small player-owned stall on the other side of the street selling an assortment of sweet drinks and cold desserts. He crossed over and bought two cups of ice-cream. He wasn't sure what flavours to get, so he just settled for a simple vanilla and chocolate combo.

As he turned to walk away, Yuuri deliberately slowed his pace.

Bringing out his keyboard, Yuuri began typing with one hand.

> To: Victor [Guildmaster of Fimbulwinter]  
>  You suck at stalking people, Victor  
>  Timestamp: December 18th 2088 10:08PM

"I have a lead on Yggdrasil. There's been this rumour floating around in the forums. I went to talk to some people just now." Victor sounded a bit out of breath.

Yuuri stopped and held out one of the cups for Victor to take. The swordsman accepted it with an appreciative nod. They resumed their nightly stroll.

"How did you know?" Victor asked.

"You have very distinctive footsteps. You also didn't change out your armour from the raid earlier," Yuuri told him.

"Anyway, there's this rumour that the upcoming Christmas event is hiding the entrance to Yggdrasil."

Yuuri scooped a bit of ice-cream and popped the spoon into his mouth. "A variation of that rumour appears every time a major event comes around. What's so special about this one?"

"The dev team confirmed that this event _does_ have something to do with Yggdrasil."

Yuuri's brows went up. "Huh. So the developers are finally done with the Yggdrasil update, then. No longer a myth now, it seems."

"Or so it appears."

"And now it's up to the players to unlock it." Yuuri was excited. The rumoured Yggdrasil update promised a whole new world of game content - literally. Whoever unlocked it would have their name go down in CRO history. "Have the devs said anything else? What do the rumours say?"

"The next dev update will be out a few days before Christmas. Rumours have been consistent on only one thing so far."

"And that is?"

"It's not going to be a global event. Probably a single boss fight. The hidden event is most likely contained to only one server channel."

"A single boss fight with a single unique drop," Yuuri thought aloud. "Everyone will want it. It'd be pure chaos. Forget alliances, guilds will crumble apart-"

"Ours will not. We don't care who gets the honour. We just want someone from the guild to be the one who unlocks it," Victor reassured him. "I asked everyone earlier during the party. They really don't care. We have a better shot at getting the drop as a guild, anyway. I doubt the boss will be an easy one."

"Where is its rumoured location?"

"Wilderness Zone. In Winterfall."

"Winterfall," Yuuri parroted, disbelief colouring his voice.

Victor nodded in affirmation.

"Half of the _guild_ won't be able to make it past the gates," Yuuri said.

"More than half of the players in _CRO_ won't be able to make it past the gates," Victor agreed. "I think they intended for it to be this way."

"What do you propose we do then?"

"We stock up on supplies. I'll look into hiring a pack mule for the guild..." Victor trailed off.

"It's practically going to be a death zone!" Yuuri exclaimed suddenly. "It'll be a free-for-all where everyone will be looking to kill each other!"

"An armoured desert salamander, then." The additional defence and tanking capability would be good, but not ideal.

"No. Get a dragonhorse. It costs a lot, but it will be worth it." If guild funds were insufficient, Yuuri would offer to cover the rest of the cost. He knew that Victor would do just the same, so cost wasn't really the issue here. "Dragonhorses can pack a hell of a kick and their stamina is legendary."

"Where are we supposed to find one? Those are incredibly rare. Who in their right mind would want to rent one to us, especially since the risk of losing it is so high?" Victor finished his ice-cream, and the cup vanished mid-air as he dropped it into a rubbish bin.

Yuuri dropped his empty cup into the bin as well. They continued walking, no particular destination in mind. "We'll comb through the marketplace listings first. If we can't find a seller on the global marketplace, then we try the black market."

The black market had no transaction taxes and zero buyer-seller protection. All of the game's scams could be traced back to the black market in one way or another. The black market had the rarest wares at the best prices. If there was one place where they could get a dragonhorse, it would be the black market.

"If we can't buy one, what then?"

"...Then we catch one ourselves."


End file.
